Sooner or later, everyone who breeds dogs finds themselves
having to feed newborn puppies. I've always had good luck using goat's
milk with no additions. Some supermarkets carry it in both the regular
milk section and in the evaporated form. You can also order dried
goat's milk from mail and internet order houses that carry animal supplies,
like KV Vet.

If you can't obtain goat's milk, you will have to make
a formula for your puppies. You cannot give them cow's milk because
it doesn't have the correct amount of fat and your puppies will probably
not be able to assimilate it. Here is a collection of formulas that
people have use successfully.

It's also a good idea to keep a supply of unflavored
Pedialyte on hand to rehydrate dogs and stabilize electrolytes if they
have diarrhea or vomiting. (Not a bad idea for people either).
Put it in the water bowl or use it in place of water with food.

1 can of Condensed Milk rather than goat's milk (it may
be too high in protein and put a strain on the puppy's kidneys
1 envelope of Knox unflavored gelatin in addition to other ingredients
(helps keep stools
solid). Received from Christeen Nowrocki on Showdog-L

I get a lot of questions about weaning and feeding young
puppies. I've never whelped anything but large-breed puppies,
so I don't know if these techniques would work for or even be applicable
to smaller dogs like toys. Generally, I feel that dogs have managed
to survive on their own for many thousands of years, and so they're
pretty well equipped to take care of their young. So, I try to
minimize my interference with the natural course of events.

That said, I'm not wild about my mom's recycling their
dinners for the puppies. Usually, this starts around five or six
weeks, Mom usually comes into the litter box a few times with
the sort of expression I've learned to recognize as "I feel a little
sick."

Cued by the puppies jumping and licking at her face,
eventually this progresses to full-blown regurgitation of food. Nothing
is really wrong with this--dog's have been feeding their young this
way for eons--except that the mom can get really run down fast.

Several factors determine when I start feeding puppies,but
the main one is the size of the litter. Very small ones, with
just two or three pups, can easily be handled by the mom. In fact,
it's hard to get them interested in food because they don't have any
competition for the milk-bar. A singleton puppy is especially
difficult. Sometimes the problem with these guys is keeping weight
off.

For most of my mothers, their enthusiasm for feeding
their puppies is inversely proportional to the size and number of needle-sharp
baby teeth in the puppies' mouths. Her waning interest makes keeping
her separated from the puppies much easier, because to get them started,
they need to be hungry and away from Mom. Otherwise, she'll eat
their food and they'll just nurse!

I also think it's important to prepare the puppies for
solid food gradually, so initially, I feed a gruel made from Gerber's
Cereal for infants (human) mixed with goat milk. At this point
it should be quite liquid. Just as with a baby's bottle, I heat
it in the microwave for a few second and stir until the temperature
is uniform. It should feel warm to the inside of your wrist but
not uncomfortably hot.

I use 8 x 12 baking pans at first. When you put
this in with the hungry puppies, they have no idea what it is, but they'll
stumble into it or stick their noses down to investigate and lick it.
It may take them a couple of tries before they decide they like it,
but eventually they'll start licking it up and licking off each other.

A little while after they've finished, I let their mom
in to clean up the pan, puppies, and pen. Then at least an hour
before their next feeding, Mom goes outside and they get another meal
when they start looking for her and whining because they're hungry.
At this point, I feed small amounts about 3 times a day.

As the puppies get used to the food and start to gobble
it up, I start making it a little thicker. By the third day, it
should be the consistency of oatmeal. At this point, I start adding
some kind of puppy food and raw meat. I grind the kibble in the
blender or food processor until it's like sand. The meat is either
hamburger or chicken I've ground up in the food processor. All
of this soaks untie it's thoroughly moist, and then is given to the
puppies.

As the week goes by, I decrease how much I grind the
food so that the pieces are increasingly larger. At about 5 weeks,
puppies become interested in eating things with texture. By 6
weeks, I'm giving them snacks of dry food to exercise their teeth and
gums as well as meat and food just soaked in milk but no longer ground.

Sated puppies don't nurse as much, so the mother's milk
production decreases. Eventually, you'll be able to separate them
for an entire day and she'll also pitch in to wean the puppies by only
allowing them to nurse for a couple of seconds before she moves or jumps
away. The puppies eat solid meals three times a day and can be
without their mother for long stretches of time.

If you don't want to mess with grinding, several dog
food companies make "Weaning" formulas of their food.
This is basically just their puppy food ground up already, but it does
save you some time.

One more not about feeding. I use food especially
formulated for large-breed puppies made by premium food companies for
the first few months but after that, I switch to the lower fat/lower
protein formulations typical of maintenance foods. It's important
not to force growth in a large-breed youngster. They'll eventually
achieve whatever size their genes encode, but it's better for the dog
physiologically if that doesn't happen overnight!